J.R.R. Tolkien considered music to be an essential part of life. Not only did he have his characters sing songs throughout the stories of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but in The Silmarillion, he also imagined creation itself as the making of music:

And it came to pass that Ilúvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed; and the glory of its beginning and the splendor of its end amazed the Ainur, so that they bowed before Ilúvatar and were silent. Then Ilúvatar said to them: ‘Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song.

When director Peter Jackson produced the film versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he turned to composer Howard Shore for the music that would accompany the drama enacted on the silver screen. Mr. Shore’s music brilliantly enhances the story through its use of magnificent Wagnerian leitmotifs (musical themes associated with people, places, or ideas), subtle changes in instrumentation, and musical variations. One analyst has produced the short video below that wonderfully analyzes Mr. Shore’s mastery in terms that all viewers can understand. Enjoy!

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Howard Leslie Shore (born 1946) is a Canadian composer who has composed the musical scores for more than eighty films. He won three Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and is also the winner of three Golden Globe Awards and four Grammy Awards.

Thank you kindly for this exposition of Shore’s outstanding contribution to what I consider to be a remarkably successful adaptation of Tolkien’s epic trilogy. The best movie music often goes unnoticed since it is so organic to the scene being presented, and Shore certainly achieved that harmony (pun intended). He certainly joins Max Steiner, Jerry Goldsmith and many others who have added aural energy to film.

In the score for Lord of the Rings trilogy I’m sure the use of leitmotifs greatly helped audiences who were not very familiar to the narrative stay oriented to the action being presented while it felt right at home with people like me who did know the story well. So remarkably, the Shore’s music enhanced the experience for a very broad audience while never getting in the way.

The Imaginative Conservative offers to our families, our communities, and the Republic, a conservatism of hope, grace, charity, gratitude and prayer. We do this in accord with Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - W. Winston Elliott III

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